


Headaches

by carpcatfish



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, I dont follow timelines ahah, If you guys like it ill continue, i torture him too much, migraines, reid-centric, tbc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 01:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7338352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpcatfish/pseuds/carpcatfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His head was pounding.<br/>The excruciating pain radiating from his eyes to the back of his skull, he could see the weird lights floating around in his vision, some zigzagging in weird patterns, he could just see them dance around as J.J. presented the case, he just had to close his eyes, it was too distracting.<br/>----<br/>Chapter 1/?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Headaches

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, I'll just say this, this is my first CM fic so if I get anything wrong don't kill me, I know the fic seems kind of banal but I might continue it and it will develop well, hopefully.  
> :)

“Headaches”  
(Takes place in some alternate universe where TV show timelines don’t exist)  
Disclaimer- If I owned Criminal Minds, every episode would be Reid-centric.  
His head was pounding.  
The excruciating pain radiating from his eyes to the back of his skull, he could see the weird lights floating around in his vision, some zigzagging in weird patterns, he could just see them dance around as J.J. presented the case, he just had to close his eyes, it was too distracting. At some point he must have put his head down in his hand as everything started spinning, that’s when Morgan whispered something in his ear, “Hey Reid, everything alright?”. Reid opened his eyes suddenly, though he wished he hadn’t because everything was so bright and it was painful. He blinked several times and replied as he processed what Morgan had just said “Oh yeah, m’fine... What were we talking about?”, Hotch looked at him with a stoic yet mildly annoyed expression that told Reid they had already gone over this. He then picked up from where J.J. had been speaking, “Three murders in Boonton, New Jersey” he pointed at the first victim, “Gina Marconi, 21, she was found dead near a waterfall in the community,” the girl has blonde hair that extended up to her jaw and her brown eyes were still widely open, “Margaret Ferguson, 24, she was found dead near the church in the town,” Margaret had her eyes closed and long brown hair with blonde highlights, “and Lilianna Bloom, 19, found dead in her parent’s house as they were out for the night,” she was a girl of short brown hair with dead green eyes, “all victims were white, female and with the same religious background—Catholic, the town itself has a large catholic community, all of the victims were cut on the chest post-mortem in the shape of a cross which is essentially the unsub’s signature, the cause of death varies from victim to victim but the sliced crosses remain constant. They all died two weeks apart from one another.” Reid couldn’t focus on the case, his head just hurt too much and now seeing the picture of the dead girls had settled something unpleasant in his stomach, he kindly asked to be excused and walked quickly towards the bathroom.  
He looked at himself in the mirror, it was a staring contest between him and his reflection, his eyes looked red from sleep deprivation, and the dark shadows that often covered his eyes had been enunciated under the bright lights in the bathroom, god it was so bright, it was overwhelming. He often had sensitivity to light, even when he didn’t get his migraines, but it never was this bad. He struggled to keep his eyes open, as the light seemed to be attacking him, it wanted something from him which he could not give, though he didn’t know what. Everything seemed to be spiraling in a dizzy and distorted haze, he just couldn’t think straight. He breathed deeply and a sudden wave of reality hit him, right, he was working in a case, he needed to put his head in the game. He quickly washed his face, the weird feeling in his stomach had settled with the mirror-based introspection. He breathed deeply once again, returning to his team, who were exchanging glances at his weird behavior.  
\---  
It was Morgan who said something, “Reid, is everything okay?” Reid remained quiet for a few seconds thinking of what to say, he knew he couldn’t tell him that he was having probably his worst migraine yet. Morgan would make him sit this one out, after all he knew how bad the migraines could get. “I think I caught a small 24-hour bug, sorry.” Hotch then spoke this time, “Want to sit this one out?”  
“No, I’m fine, I’ve come here with worse.” And it was true, some days his migraines got so unbearable he wouldn’t be able to speak because the noise could radiate to his skull, he didn’t know how he managed those days.  
It wasn’t probably what Hotch wanted to hear, but he understood him, though deep down he knew there was something going on.  
It was already 9AM when they boarded the private jet and as soon as Spencer sat down, he fell into a deep slumber. Hotch would have said something, he knew he had to because usually in the jet they proceeded to a second, more in depth, briefing. But he didn’t say a thing to him, he knew how tired and sick the poor kid must have felt.  
\---  
An hour later, they finally reached their destination, Reid, however, was still asleep with dark sunglasses plastered in his face, Emily looked at him with worried eyes, it wasn’t the first time Reid had gone on a case with severe migraines, she knew that. She had to wake him up, but she sure wasn’t up for that job, she didn’t want to wake the poor kid up, he just seemed so exhausted.  
In the meanwhile, what was an hour, felt like a minute, one moment he closed his eyes quickly and the other moment he opened them, everything still seemed awfully bright, even under the safety of his shades. He felt weirdly flushed and warm, though sometimes that happened when he got his migraines. He proceeded and walked forward to the exit of the plane, were Hotch was looking at him worriedly, “Are you sure you don’t want to sit this one out?”, Reid took off his sunglasses for a minute, and tried his best to look at Hotch directly in the eye, “There could be more of those girls out there, Hotch I have to help.” Hotch nodded and sighed, “If your headache gets out of hand, let me know.” He would have forced Reid to go to the hotel that minute, but he knew they needed his help.  
Reid was confused, he didn’t tell Hotch about his migraines, did Garcia go through his medical file? Did Emily tell him? Was his body language too obvious? His head was spiraling with paranoid thoughts, just making his headache worse by the second.  
As if knowing what he was thinking Hotch calmly said, “Do you really think we wouldn’t notice if something was going on?” and with that he coolly walked away.

**Author's Note:**

> please review!  
> If guys review it will motivate me to keep writing the fic  
> I'm also sorry because I know I can't write cases very well.  
> <3


End file.
